11 Comments
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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

AI would be better described as Augmenting Intelligence.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Great point. We don't have the habit of calling machines "replacement humans", but instead think of them as augmentations of our physical abilities in most cases. Why should it be different with the cognitive amplification?

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David Perlmutter's avatar

"He was upset that writing meant that the ancient skill of memorizing long passages would go away. Plato feared that we might be trading in convenience for the ability to reason."

A remarkably similar attitude is held now by those opposed to AI, who fear the loss of the human touch in society will similarly cause "trading in convenience".

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Andrew Smith's avatar

100% agreed. I'm glad you see it this way too- it's complicated, of course, but we need to watch out for babies in bathwater.

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David Perlmutter's avatar

Definitely.

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Daniel Nest's avatar

Dude, I totally remember long division.

It goes:

1) Carry the last digit.

2) Divide by the thing.

3) Write "Solve this" in ChatGPT

4) *Insert the equation you're trying to solve*

5) Profit

Easy

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Andrew Smith's avatar

This approach will seem like SO much work in another year or two, I bet. "You had to... to TYPE what you wanted to say in there? Like with your hands?"

Reminds me of Idiocracy's understanding of water. "Like out the toilet?"

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Daniel Nest's avatar

Ugh, moving muscles and stuff?! Exhausting!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I'm once again reminded (almost every day now) of this now-classic Ronnie Chieng standup skit:

https://youtu.be/BGEAiUeiaKs

Feels like future historians are gonna study this and Idiocracy to understand that many of us saw this coming.

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

58008

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Andrew Smith's avatar

If you know, you know.

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